Hiroshima ....just an experiment on the already defeated?

Its strange how we in the west?
Haveimplemented the greatest of sufferings , in the name of freedom.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki inflicted indescribable suffering and death onto hudreds of thousands of Japanese women, Chidren, aged men ect.

It followed on from the fire killings of tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers on the islands in the south Pacific and nearer to Japan?

The question is ?
Are we the west... the most efficent and lethally vengeful to our enemies?

Or is it simply we are possessors of the most advanced technology at the right times?

reply to post by Dr Expired


You might be interested to know that Japan was almost finished with their Atom Bomb that they acquired from Germany . We didn't know they were working on it . Would they have used it? Yes ! Three weeks of armed resistance could have given them enough time to nuke us .

Ending the war with the atomic bombs saved at least 1 million lives of American soldiers and Japanese soldiers/ civilians.
Had they not been used the Japanese would have "fought to the last person to protect their homeland"

reply to post by Dr Expired


love these questions from those on the sidelines. in this case many decades past.

war is hell

thats it end.of story. that is why it should be an absolute last resort. however, if it comes to a point that war is necessary, win.

btw i dont hear you lamenting about the tens of millions of people the japanese murdered in cold blood.

eta do a google.on japanese baby bayonet phillipines ww2.

eta2 lmgtfy www.angelfire.com/on4/zambalesforum/tortures.htm

If anyone ever did any research, they would realize that early in 45, there was something called the "Target Committee".

The Target Committee looked at all Japanese targets do decide what to use. A lot went into the decision, such as placement, height of detonation, the psychological effect on the Japanese people. You can read it here:
www.dannen.com...

It was obvious that they wanted to cause as much destruction as possible and as much misery and pain as possible to Japan. It had nothing to do with saving millions of lives - we had them blockaded, and could have starved them out, especially since the Nazi threat was gone....the entire world would have ganged up on Japan. So the argument about "saving millions of American soldiers" is a bunch of poppycock.

The droppping of the Abomb was to do a live test on human subjects - they had already blown up other #, but blowing up humans is REAL exciting. Causing cancers for generations? Priceless, apparently.

Originally posted by Bakatono
reply to post by Dr Expired

 

love these questions from those on the sidelines. in this case many decades past.

war is hell

thats it end.of story. that is why it should be an absolute last resort. however, if it comes to a point that war is necessary, win.

btw i dont hear you lamenting about the tens of millions of people the japanese murdered in cold blood.

eta do a google.on japanese baby bayonet phillipines ww2.

No one is saying the Japanese soldiers were nice people. But when you make the excuse for the US that "hey, war is hell!" and then in the next breath condemn the Japanese soldiers for what they did in war time, it shows an obvious lack of critical thinking skills.

The difference that some may miss is that the US used nukes to END a war.

Nowadays, some would use them to START one.

If you live long enough, at some point you can end up being a witness to history, or at least an interviewer of a witness.

I had occasion about 30 years ago now to meet a man who told me he was the navigator on the 'camera' flight that accompanied the bomber that bombed Nagasaki. I have always wondered why they dropped the second bomb, why not just wait for an obviously shocked and chaotic enemy to react and surrender?

What he told me had the ring of truth. He said that the bombs were brought over on board ships, that the sailors and everyone else were terrified of them and that basically, the second bomb was dropped on a few hundred thousand people to get rid of it... they didn't want to take the chance of taking it back home again.

Originally posted by signalfire
He said that the bombs were brought over on board ships, that the sailors and everyone else were terrified of them and that basically, the second bomb was dropped on a few hundred thousand people to get rid of it... they didn't want to take the chance of taking it back home again.

LOL
Well, thats quite a different story than what the Atom Bomb apologists like to promote...
"Hey guys....that thing creeps me out...what dya say we just mass murder some Japs with it?? I mean, we could drop it out here on some abandoned atoll, but # THAT NOISE! Lets kill some civvies!"

reply to post by Dr Expired


lmgtfy II
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes

notice the crimes against Millions of civilians

reply to post by Bakatono


You obviously did not read my post above. The Americans committed war crimes during WWII as well. Fact. We just won, so werent prosecuted.

Like you said, war is hell.....so why do you excuse the actions of one side and villify another? You are arguing from weak ground. The Japanese didnt deserve to be "punished" for their war crimes with an atomic bomb...if that is the case what do we deserve? America has committted war crimes, no? So do you think we deserve to be nuked?

reply to post by aching_knuckles


Correct, it was intended to do two things:

1) end the war
2) show the rest of the world (ie the Soviet Union) that we can just blast them to smithereens.

That is why two were dropped. It was to create the impression that we had so many that we could do this routinely. It scared the hell out of everyone, which is exactly what it was intended to do.

Now, with regards to the Japanese. We would have lost a lot, and I mean A LOT, more soliders if we had to attack the mainland from the beach. The Japanese do not give up unless told to do so. I lived there for 10 years, they follow direction until death. If someone with a higher title (or age) tells them the sky is yellow, it is yellow. It will be yellow until someone of higher stature tells them it is blue. This is the way they are. Without Hirohito telling them to stop the war they would have fought to the last man. Millions more would have died.

Originally posted by aching_knuckles

Originally posted by Bakatono
reply to post by Dr Expired

 

love these questions from those on the sidelines. in this case many decades past.

war is hell

thats it end.of story. that is why it should be an absolute last resort. however, if it comes to a point that war is necessary, win.

btw i dont hear you lamenting about the tens of millions of people the japanese murdered in cold blood.

eta do a google.on japanese baby bayonet phillipines ww2.

No one is saying the Japanese soldiers were nice people. But when you make the excuse for the US that "hey, war is hell!" and then in the next breath condemn the Japanese soldiers for what they did in war time, it shows an obvious lack of critical thinking skills.

Good damn point. However, we were not the ones who invaded other countries throughout the pacific and decided to rape their women and then toss the babies in the air to see if we could catch them with our bayonets.

I guess it is hard to decide the degree of nobility in our actions. Should we have bombed the two cities in order to stop the war, knowing it would kill innocents such as women and newborn babies? Should we have let the Japanese continue to murder millions of women and babies indiscriminately with medical experiments and just plain old cold blooded, evil, maniacal murder?

Everyone hates Hitler, but he killed far fewer people than the Japanese did.

Originally posted by Bakatono
Should we have bombed the two cities in order to stop the war, knowing it would kill innocents such as women and newborn babies? Should we have let the Japanese continue to murder millions of women and babies indiscriminately with medical experiments and just plain old cold blooded, evil, maniacal murder?

OMG WERE THEY RIPPING BABIES FROM INCUBATORS??? ahem.

At that point, we had them on their home ISLAND, a place surrounded by WATER. They could not get off it. We had it blockaded, and effectively controlled the air space. We had them beaten. As I mentioned before, the entire world was now ganging up on Japan. It would not have cost "millions of American lives", unless of course, the US WANTED TO BE THE ONLY NATION TO OCCUPY JAPAN for some reason.

And irradiating the crap out of them was the easiest way for us to do that. And that is why we did it. Not bacause the Japanese were evil, or all the lives it would save...because we wanted the economic benefits of being conquerers all to ourselves...and it worked. We still have a base there to this day.

Originally posted by aching_knuckles

Originally posted by signalfire
He said that the bombs were brought over on board ships, that the sailors and everyone else were terrified of them and that basically, the second bomb was dropped on a few hundred thousand people to get rid of it... they didn't want to take the chance of taking it back home again.

LOL
Well, thats quite a different story than what the Atom Bomb apologists like to promote...
"Hey guys....that thing creeps me out...what dya say we just mass murder some Japs with it?? I mean, we could drop it out here on some abandoned atoll, but # THAT NOISE! Lets kill some civvies!"

BS

Nagasaki was always a target. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were specifically targeted because they had a moderate population (needed to show just how bad it COULD be in a large metropolitan area such as Kyoto or Tokyo) and they had no real religious artifacts. Kyoto has a majority of all the Japanese religious and Shogun history. Well, that entire area does. It was the heart of the Edo period and has lots of temples that are a near a thousand years old. (I was actually in one once that was rebuilt 780 years ago after it burned down, when it was already near 300 years old). The Emperor lived in Tokyo. TPTB didn't want to kill the emporer (they needed him to end the war and establish US rule) and they didn't want to start an assault on Japan's version of Buddhism. So they found some convenient sites that didn't match either of those descriptions and had enough population and infrastructure to really show the affect of the weapons.

The reason two were dropped was to scare the Soviets. One was scary. Dropping another soon after was downright terrifying. This allowed the US to pretend that it could do this on an almost weekly basis. Near the end of the war with Japan we were beginning to worry about the Soviets and had to put them in their place. So, Hiroshima was to end the war. Nagasaki was to prove a point.

reply to post by aching_knuckles

Um. . . critical thinking?

You're using a 21st century mindset/viewpoint to judge and determine 20th century actions.

I mean, why not start a thread about how "bleeding" out a person was cruel and inhumane in the past when, in all actuality, physicians at the time, were doing so to try to save lives.

Originally posted by aching_knuckles
reply to post by Bakatono

 

You obviously did not read my post above. The Americans committed war crimes during WWII as well. Fact. We just won, so werent prosecuted.

Like you said, war is hell.....so why do you excuse the actions of one side and villify another? You are arguing from weak ground. The Japanese didnt deserve to be "punished" for their war crimes with an atomic bomb...if that is the case what do we deserve? America has committted war crimes, no? So do you think we deserve to be nuked?

Apologies, I was on mobile, but I switched to PC so I could read and respond better, catching up now.

I re-read your post, I don't see your reference to war crimes. I do see your reference to the committee who intended to get as much destruction as possible to test the weapon. I suppose that could be considered as a war crime, however, later in the thread you advocated blockading and starving them out with the support of all the world ganging up on them. Not sure there is much of a difference except time. Two cities, dead real fast vs. everyone dying very slowly. Kids and all.

Your suggestion that the US has committed war crimes and could be nuked for that reason is a thesis for another thread. It is valid and I agree there is a lot to discuss there, but it isn't germane to this topic.

Originally posted by beezzer
reply to post by aching_knuckles

 

Um. . . critical thinking?

You're using a 21st century mindset/viewpoint to judge and determine 20th century actions.

I mean, why not start a thread about how "bleeding" out a person was cruel and inhumane in the past when, in all actuality, physicians at the time, were doing so to try to save lives.

Really? I guess our 21st century mindset is so far advanced and so far removed from that line of thinking, thats why no one in America has ever talked about turning Iran into a big "glass bowl", right? Give me a break.

Originally posted by Bakatono

Originally posted by aching_knuckles

Originally posted by signalfire
He said that the bombs were brought over on board ships, that the sailors and everyone else were terrified of them and that basically, the second bomb was dropped on a few hundred thousand people to get rid of it... they didn't want to take the chance of taking it back home again.

LOL
Well, thats quite a different story than what the Atom Bomb apologists like to promote...
"Hey guys....that thing creeps me out...what dya say we just mass murder some Japs with it?? I mean, we could drop it out here on some abandoned atoll, but # THAT NOISE! Lets kill some civvies!"

BS

Nagasaki was always a target. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were specifically targeted because they had a moderate population (needed to show just how bad it COULD be in a large metropolitan area such as Kyoto or Tokyo) and they had no real religious artifacts. Kyoto has a majority of all the Japanese religious and Shogun history.

You are showing your ignorance and your complete acceptance of American propaganda (who can blame you, they learned from the Nazis!)

www.dannen.com...

Go to part 6, "status of targets". Nagasaki is not listed, and I always wondered why. It looks like signalfire found out why.

Originally posted by Bakatono
later in the thread you advocated blockading and starving them out with the support of all the world ganging up on them. Not sure there is much of a difference except time. Two cities, dead real fast vs. everyone dying very slowly. Kids and all.

No, I suggested as an option. I do certainly advocate it instead of using an atomic weapon on civilians. I disagree there would have been no difference....Japan was close to capitulating. We wouldnt have even had to land a force....if we just amassed one with the Russians and UK/Australia in a show of might, the Japanese likely would have backed down. But then, we would have had to allowed UK and Russia a slice of the pie, just like in Germany.

The end of the war in Germany wasnt about finding Hitler to put on trial - it was a race to Berlin to see who got to keep the city and all the Nazi loot.